I am hoping some people can help me out. I am hoping for people who have visited/interviewed at more than one school can give their impressions on which schools seemed better in terms of:
1- Clinical placement options (I worry that schools with 50-70 students cannot get everyone into the best sites)
2- Facilities, did any school seem to have great classrooms or alot of simulation rooms?
3- Location, affordable rent and nice area around school? Denver will probably win there.
4- Jobs in area, with Nova, Emory, and south being close does that saturate the markets at all?
Please feel free to rank based on your experience, there is no wrong answers obviously.
Re: Comparing Programs
Posted by Anesthetist22 on October 12, 2018, 4:18 pm, in reply to "Comparing Programs"
Hey, so I interviewed at Case Western, Emory, and Nova. I will say that all of them are amazing in their own ways so ill try to address this in your questions.
1) Case and Emory have a lot of clinical sites to choose from. The Houston location is attached to the Texas Medical Center, so there will never be a worry about getting the best sites. Emory has a class size of 36 and a lot of hospitals to choose from in the downtown area. So I don't think there will be any problem with getting the best sites for either program. I can't tell you about Nova because they wont even tell you their clinical rotation sites and trust me, I tried to find out during the interview and they still wouldn't budge on locations. The first year students that were in their fall semester didn't even know where their rotations were yet for the spring.
2)Emory has a really nice, modern classroom and a very nice simulation lab (One sim lab). They also have a didactic area where you can practice on mannequins I believe. Nova has really nice simulation labs that look brand new and top of the line (two sim labs). The classroom at Ft Lauderdale is also extremely big. CWRU has very nice sim lab just like the rest and the classroom is being moved to a new location at Houston so I can't say anything on that but the one I saw was very well maintained.
3) CWRU Houston is really cheap to live around because its Texas. The Dc location will be expensive to live at, and I didn't do much research on the Cleveland location. Emory and Nova are pretty expensive to live around but you can always split the cost with people in the program.
4) CWRU Houston has employers higher all around the area but CWRU allows you to set up a clinical rotation site of your choice just like Emory and I think Nova, so don't worry so much about jobs in the area. Just try to be flexible and go where the jobs are.
Re: Comparing Programs
Posted by Shrek on October 12, 2018, 2:21 pm, in reply to "Comparing Programs"
Current first year student at South
Before getting into your questions, I think some schools are different in that some don't send you into clinical right off the bat. *FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD* Nova students don't go to the hospital at all until the second year? (correct me if I'm wrong anyone) but here at South they ease you into the hospital right from the beginning which is nice! (example: right now as 2nd quarter's we go in twice a week from 6am-12pm)
1. They have about 50-60 rotations sites, about 30-40% are in Georgia, the rest are spread out into other AA states (only a couple in Florida, a few in Texas and none in Colorado yet though). From what I've heard you basically get to go wherever you'd like because there are so many sites and only 24 students *AND* if you have it in with some hospital or wherever you live/work/shadow with now you can work it out with them to have a rotation even though it's not officially a rotation site.
2. South's campus is pretty decent, it's clean and gets the job done.
3. Savannah, Georgia...I'm really disappointed in the rent situation here. Near the school, there are only shit apartment complexes that are too expensive for what they are (mine is ~1100 and it's just eh). And all of the nice apartment complexes are downtown and super expensive although you can find a roommate within the class to reduce cost
4. The hospitals here in Savannah have a lot of AA's and are always looking for AA's as far as I can tell. I haven't really felt like the market is saturated other than in Atlanta maybe? but that's just by looking at gaswork.com and not really hearing much/probing the anesthetists about it that I work with. Also, you usually build a network with the rotation sites you go to so you're not tied down to the specific area that the school is at obviously
I believe nova lets you start clinicals relatively quickly, but with minimal hours just like south. I can tell you that rent in south florida is high. Nova does have the best sim labs though.
Re: Comparing Programs
Posted by Anesthetist22 on October 12, 2018, 4:03 pm, in reply to "Re: Comparing Programs"
You start clinicals at Nova in January of your first year. So if you are entering in May of 2019, you wont be in a clinical setting until January of 2020. CWRU gets you into clinicals the fastest, which is after the first three weeks of "boot camp".
I forgot to mention the staff at South. I absolutely love the assistant director and director of South and all the instructors are very nice, warm, and welcoming which is different from what I've heard at other places such as Emory but all of my opinions on other schools is just by word of mouth
Re: Comparing Programs
Posted by Anesthetist22 on October 12, 2018, 4:21 pm, in reply to "Re: Comparing Programs"
I will agree that I heard from an Emory student during my interview there that South was a very nice program because of how welcoming they are. My experience at Emory was similar to what you have heard, I didn't feel as though they wanted to get to know me but rather to get to know what I know about the profession, the program, and what they have to offer.
Re: Comparing Programs
Posted by Jtaylco on October 12, 2018, 10:03 am, in reply to "Comparing Programs"
I cant tell you anything about the school but I can warn you rent in Colorado is pretty expensive.
I looked at some places in Aurora and they seem reasonable compared to other big cities, around 1100 per month. I will say that the area around MCW has some very reasonable places to rent.
on October 12, 2018, 8:37 am